Doc: Benson has reason to be angry with Smith, players association

Sep. 28, 2011

Cedric Benson has said he was “caught off guard by the players association." / The Enquirer/Michael McCarter

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Ced Benson sits in NFL purgatory, sort-of suspended, sort-of not. He’s living the cliché, because for now he has no choice. Benson really is taking it one game at a time. “Definitely,’’ he said Wednesday, when asked if he were playing Sunday. Beyond that, no one knows.

The legal tangle will continue. Benson has filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board, against the NFL Players Association. The details are numbing to everyone, even Benson, who said Wednesday he wasn’t exactly astute on the whys and wherefores. He knows this, though:

His union leader sold him down the river.

His employer is punishing him for something that happened when he wasn’t an employee.

In what has become known as the “side-letter agreement’’, Players Association head DeMaurice Smith and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell agreed to allow Goodell to suspend eight of 33 players involved in incidents during the lockout. All eight are repeat violators of league’s personal conduct policy.

There are a few problems with this. None is minor:

How can the league suspend a guy who wasn’t technically working for the league?

How can Smith, a man who claims to represent players, cut a deal solo, that punishes one of his rank and file?

Benson was a free agent, literally, when he assaulted a roommate last summer. Not only did he not have a contract with any team at the time, he was not employed by the league. No players were.

Meantime, team player representatives agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement, without knowing all the details. That’s a detail DeMaurice Smith conveniently overlooked.

Bengals player rep Andrew Whitworth said his understanding was that players involved in lockout dustups would hear about them from the league after the lockout ended, but wouldn’t be punished for them. Not so, in Benson’s case.

This is all boring stuff, unless you’re the one who’s affected. Benson has reason to be angry with the players association. He has reason to be annoyed with Goodell. The former didn’t support him; the latter appears to be making an example of him. None of the other seven repeat offenders has been suspended.

Plus, Benson has already fulfilled his legal obligations. In the opinion of the legal system, his dues are paid in full. Apparently, the NFL operates under its own legal standard.

Benson said he was “caught off guard by the players association, honestly. I mean, that’s the players association. They’re supposed to be all for one. Supposed to have the best interests of the players in mind.’’

Well, yeah.

Even before the side-letter agreement, Goodell’s disciplinary tactics left much to be desired. The fines leveled last season at Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison – in excess of $100,000, for hits deemed flagrantly illegal – showed Goodell at his arbitrary best. Then he suspended for five NFL games Terrelle Pryor for acts committed while he was at Ohio State.

The justice system gave Ced Benson his due process. The NFL passed on that small detail. If Roger Goodell can suspend someone for acts committed when he wasn’t even an NFL player or coach, what else can he do?

It goes without saying that personal conduct matters, especially in an ultra-image conscious corporation such as the NFL. And no one is giving Benson a pass. He spent five days in jail for a 2010 assault; he’s in a diversion program now, for the assault last summer.

Certainly, the commissioner is well within his rights to bust players who have legal issues. Where does fairness come into play? When is Goodell seen as benevolent caretaker, and when is he viewed as autocratic warden?

Maybe Benson’s case will answer that question.

Meantime, all Benson knows is he can play Sunday. He has opinions, too. About what’s fair and what’s not. It’s hard to disagree with any of them.